Guilty of murder, the millionaire farmer’s son who killed his gay lover, 15, with spanner
THE teenage son of a millionaire farmer bludgeoned his schoolboy lover to death because he was worried his friends and parents would find out he was gay.
Matthew Mason, 19, was branded ‘selfish, cold and calculating’ by his victim’s distraught parents after a jury convicted him of Alex Rodda’s brutal murder yesterday.
Mason was so desperate to keep his relationship with openly homosexual Alex quiet that he started paying him hush money, a jury heard.
He handed over more than £2,000 in just a few weeks, but when he ran out of cash, and ‘naive’ Alex refused to stop the blackmail, he became desperate.
Fearful the 15-year- old would reveal their affair or go to the police because he was underage, he lured the youngster to a remote area of woodland, near Bowdon, in cheshire, telling him they were going to a ‘special’ place for sex.
He then battered Alex to death with a 20-inch spanner.
Tests later revealed the victim had suffered a fractured skull after being struck at least 15 times in the ‘brutal and mer
‘Tried to sneak away from his crime’
ciless’ attack. Yesterday Alex’s parents, Lisa, 51, and Adam, 58, a pub landlord said: ‘Our son Alex was a wonderful, gentle, loving, kind, caring, respectful boy who loved life and lived life to the full. His precious life was cut short all too soon at the hands of Matthew Mason.
‘Mason admitted killing Alex but still felt the need to put us through the trauma of this trial in an attempt to minimise his sentence.
‘He never once considered the pain it would put our family through or indeed his own family. We have never come across a more selfish, cold and calculating person.’
Mason had admitted killing Alex, in December 2019, but denied his murder and instead, during a month-long trial at chester crown court, he claimed he had acted in self-defence.
But yesterday the defendant, female jurors and family members on both sides were in tears after the guilty verdict was delivered. Judge Steven Everett, the Recorder of chester, told Mason he had tried to ‘sneak away’ from his crime but had been convicted on ‘overwhelming evidence’.
‘You ran this trial as long as you possibly could in the hope you could sneak away from a conviction of murder,’ the judge said. He warned him he would face life in jail when he is sentenced later this month.
The court heard that Mason was born into a wealthy farming family, in Knutsford, cheshire, and belonged to a group of Young Farmers, who socialised and drank together in local pubs.
He lived with his parents and two younger sisters on their £1million farm in the village of
Ollerton and was studying agricultural engineering at college.
ian Unsworth Qc, prosecuting, said that in October 2019, Mason, who had a girlfriend, began sending Alex sexually explicit messages. Alex allegedly told Mason’s girlfriend about this and she then dumped Mason.
Alex then demanded £50 from the older boy to stop him putting details of their relationship on social media. He also told friends he would report Mason to police if he stopped paying him the cash because he was underage.
Mason went on to pay Alex around £2,200, which he blew on new clothes and a trip to Amsterdam. One friend said Alex had told her that ‘Matt didn’t want anyone to know he was gay because he was in the Young Farmers and they can be quite racist and homophobic. He didn’t want his family to know.’